


A Natural Progression

by Nochi



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Polymachina, baby's first poly, bisexual disaster vax'ildan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-20
Updated: 2017-03-20
Packaged: 2018-10-08 07:50:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10381962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nochi/pseuds/Nochi
Summary: It was Vax’s fault, because of course it was. Vax who runs into rooms and puts his tongue in interesting places, Vax who feels all of his emotions at once, Vax who can’t just love one person.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This started because I ship Shaun/Keyleth/Vax because otherwise Gilmore is unhappy and I won't stand for it.
> 
> And then. Uh. It got away from me. A lil bit.

He got all weird and withdrawn and sullen every time he and Keyleth and Gilmore were in the same room together, until Gilmore went to Keyleth to ask if he should just stay away from the two of them.

(He couldn’t ask Vax. Vax might say “yes, Gilmore, stay away from me”, and he’d had his heart broken by Vax’ildan quite enough, thank you.)

So he asked Keyleth, who was very confused. She told him not to change a thing, that she certainly had no problem with him, and that she would talk to Vax.

* * *

 

“Vax?” Her voice was quiet in the dark of their room, and Vax made a snorting sort of asleep noise in response. “Vax, do you hate Shaun?”

The next noise was more explosive than the first, and he sat up, staring down at her with bleary eyes. “Keyleth, what the f-”

“He thinks you hate him,” she interrupted, sitting up. “He asked me if he should just stay away from us.”

“I don’t want that,” he protested, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes.

“He seems to think you do.”

There was a long pause, where Vax seemed to be trying to collect the scattered pieces of his brain.

“Gods,” he muttered. “You couldn’t have done this any other time? Like when I was awake?”

“Sorry,” she said sheepishly.

He dropped his hands, staring ahead rather than looking at her. “I don’t hate Shaun,” he said quietly. “I think it might actually be quite the opposite.”

“You still have feelings for him.” She tried to keep it from sounding like a condemnation, but Vax still flinched a little.

“Well, yeah. But that doesn’t mean I don’t love _you_. It’s like…” he trailed off, sighed in frustration. “Like we’ll be in the sitting room, holding hands, yeah? And I feel like I should be holding hands with Shaun, too. Not instead of you. _In addition to_ you.” He stared at her, a kind of hopelessness in his eyes. “Does that make any kind of sense?”

“I...I think so.” She laid her hand on top of his. “You’ve...always had a very big heart, Vax.”

“And _you_ have my heart,” he said fiercely. “I just think...I think he might, as well. And I don’t know what to do about that.”

“Well, sulking in the corner every time you see him hasn’t done much but hurt his feelings, so far,” she said, and he sighed, his shoulders sagging. “But...I think maybe I’m not the person to talk to about this.”

“What do you mean?”

“You haven’t hurt _my_ feelings, Vax.” She squeezed his hand. “I love you and I trust you and I know your heart works in ways your head doesn’t always understand or know how to explain. Shaun hasn’t had the chance to learn that about you. I think he deserves it.”

“...Keykey, it’s very late, I need you to use small words.”

She giggled, leaning in to kiss Vax on the cheek.

“Go hold Shaun’s hand.”

* * *

 

                        Vax knocked on the door of the small house Gilmore had in Whitestone, trying not to fidget. He wasn’t a teenager on a first date, he was a grown man, Shaun was a grown man, they were both grown men and there was nothing to be nervous about.

Which did nothing to keep him from being incredibly nervous.

The door opened a crack at first, then completely as Shaun saw who it was. “Vax’ildan,” he said, surprise in his voice.

“Hello, Shaun.”

“What, ah. What brings you here?”

“...can we talk?”

  
He hated the fear that entered the other man’s eyes at the question. He hated that he’d put it there. 

“But of course.” He stepped aside, ushering Vax inside, and quickly prepared them each a cup of tea. “What would you ask of me?” he asked as he sat at the small table, gesturing for Vax to do the same.

“Keyleth told me I upset you,” he said, wrapping his hands around the cup to keep them from shaking. “I wanted to apologize for that.”

“I apologize for whatever I did to warrant your...apparent displeasure,” Shaun countered, taking a long sip of tea.

“You didn’t do anything,” Vax insisted. “I’m just...a very stupid man, sometimes. Who is luckier than he deserves, to have people like you in my life.”

And he explained his dilemma, about holding hands and sharing his heart. Gilmore listened very quietly, looking at the table, hands wrapped around a rapidly cooling teacup.

“I love Keyleth,” Vax finished. “But I think, given the chance, I might…” he took a deep breath, forcing the words out before they could stick in his throat. “I might love you too. If you’re willing to give me that chance.”  

Shaun was quiet for a long moment, tapping a finger against the side of his teacup.

“Please say something,” Vax whispered, as the silence stretched into the unbearable.

“Historically,” Shaun said, after a few more breaths, “I don’t share well. I’m jealous, I like to keep the things that are _mine_ close to hand and show them off.”

Vax nodded, swallowing, staring at the floor. “I understand.”

“But,” Shaun continued, as though Vax hadn’t spoken. “Let it never be said that I wasn’t willing to go out on a limb to get what I want.” He smiled, a quick flash of bright teeth. “I’m willing to try. For you, Vax’ildan.”

Vax felt like his heart had been tied to a stone, and he hadn’t known it until it was released, rising up into his throat.

“Thank you,” he said, whispering more out of necessity than anything else.

“Come,” Shaun said, standing. His cloak flew to his hand from its hook by the door. “Let’s go tell dear Keyleth the good news.” He fastened the cloak around his shoulders and offered Vax his arm. “Before you get all weepy and I’m forced to join you in solidarity.”

Vax gave a watery sort of laugh, standing and looping his arm through Shaun’s. An old, familiar motion, but there was something new about it now, something electric, that made him exceedingly aware of every point at which their arms touched. They made their way through town, Shaun’s smile brighter than it had been in ages, his fingers light against Vax’s wrist.

He wasn’t sure what he’d started, but he was very interested to see where it ended up.


	2. Chapter 2

The scene, as Vex saw it: dinner, with the seven of them plus Shaun, which had been happening more and more frequently lately. She wasn’t complaining; she liked the sorcerer, and her brother was much happier with him being around so much.

Shaun said something she couldn’t hear, but which Vax found uproariously funny. Smiling widely, he caught Gilmore’s face in his hands and kissed him lightly on the mouth.

It took a second for her brain to register why that was weird. A year ago it wouldn’t have been (maybe aside from the two of them doing something besides flirting all over the continent), but Keyleth was sitting right there, on Vax’s other side, with no reaction other than to smile fondly at the pair of them.

* * *

 

“It’s weird, right?” she asked Percy that night, as they prepared for bed. 

“Maybe it’s a Marquesian thing,” Percy suggested, sitting on the edge of the bed.

“You don’t think Shaun, like, bullied Keyleth into anything, do you?” she fretted. “I mean, I don’t _think_ he’d do that, but he was so very hung up on Vax…”

“I think he knows doing anything even remotely unkind to Keyleth is a good way to get a Whisper in the ribs,” he pointed out. Vex made noises of agreement, but her expression remained twisted with worry. “Why don’t you just ask him about it?”

She made a disgusted noise. “I am _not_ asking my brother about his sex life.”

Percy sighed. “Then ask Keyleth. That’s more normal, right? Sort of a girl-talk kind of thing? Get her drunk, she’ll say anything while she’s drunk.”

“I suppose.” She crawled into bed, laying on her side to face Percy. “It’ll still be awkward, though.”

He laid facing her, their eyes level. “I bet I know how to take your mind off of it.” His smile was just slightly wicked, and after a moment she matched it, and after that they didn’t talk very much at all.

* * *

 

                     “Keyleth!” Vex’s voice was overly chipper, too loud and in a forced sort of pitch. Keyleth frowned as she turned to face her.

“What’s wrong?”

“What? Nothing’s wrong, why would anything be wrong?” Her smile was a horrible sort of rictus grin. “We don’t talk enough anymore, darling, let’s go to a bar and talk.”

“Why do we have to go to a bar to talk?”

“So we can drink while we talk! We never drink together anymore, either. Two birds, one stone.”

“Drinking is pretty much half of what we do, ever.” But she found herself pulled along in Vex’s wake, and they would up at the fancier of Whitestone’s drinking establishments. Vex downed her first order almost in a single gulp, and Keyleth laid a hand on her wrist. “Vex, you’re worrying me. You’re acting really weird and drinking really heavily and the last time that happened was when we threw the carpet in that lava pit.”

“I thought we agreed not to talk about that.”

“I’m trying to ask you who fell in a lava pit.”

Vex received her drink, took a very steady sip, then looked at Keyleth. “Why are you okay with my brother kissing Shaun?”

Keyleth hesitated, then picked her drink up in both hands and chugged. 

* * *

 

                        “It’s not a _bad_ thing.” They were each four drinks in, and Keyleth was speaking from where her head was pillowed on her arms. “It’s just...new. And weird. I’m not unhappy, I’m just...weird.”

“Hear, hear,” Vex said, lifting her (fifth) drink in a toast. Keyleth pouted at her, then burst into giggles.

“No, you’re right, I’m really weird.” She sat up and sipped at her own drink. “It makes Vax happy. Vax being happy makes me happy.”

“What if you wanted to be with someone else?” Vex asked. “My brother can be kind of...accidentally selfish sometimes. Would he share you the way you’re sharing him?”

Keyleth thought about that for a long moment, then shrugged. “I don’t know. We’d have to talk about it. I think it’d depend on the someone else, too.” She stared into her cup. “I figure I’m pretty lucky just to have one person interested in me.”

“Oh, hush, Keyleth, you’re a catch.” Keyleth snorted into her cup.”I’m serious! If my brother wasn’t...brooding behind you all the time, I’m pretty sure you’d be fending them off with a stick.” She Winked. She hadn’t intended for it to be a capital-W Wink, but she was pretty drunk, and she didn’t always have complete control over the Wink to start with.

Keyleth flushed, her eyes going wide. Vex giggled a little - Keyleth always reacted like this to her Winking, it was part of why she kept doing it.

She wasn’t expecting Keyleth to lean in, catching Vex’s lips with her own. It was a little off-balance - she more or less crashed into Vex, misjudging the distance between them - but all Vex could register at the moment was that Keyleth’s lips tasted like wine.

“Oh!” Keyleth pulled back, clapping a hand over her mouth like she’d said something vulgar. “I didn’t - sorry - I’m just - wine -” Her eyes were huge and round, her face even redder than before, and she couldn’t seem to stop babbling and apologizing.

So Vex leaned forward and kissed her. It seemed reasonable at the time - she wanted Keyleth to stop apologizing, so she should make her stop talking, and kissing her would make her stop talking. Plus her mouth was very warm and very soft, and Vex was enjoying how it felt against her own. She reached up, cupping Keyleth’s face with one hand, tilting her head at a different angle and that was _much_ better, why hadn’t she done that to start with?

She wasn’t sure how long that went on for. The next thing she was aware of was Keyleth breaking the kiss, but not pulling away, and how very _green_ her eyes were up close.

“Oh god,” she whispered. Another half-second of hesitation and she slipped off the barstool and fled the tavern. 

* * *

 

                        “Vex?” Percy entered their room, the open door throwing a shaft of light across the bed. A hissing noise came from the lump under the sheets, and he closed it quickly. “I said get _her_ drunk,” he pointed out.

“I needed the courage,” she mumbled. She sat up, disheveled and bleary-eyed.

“Did you find out what’s going on with them?”

“...yes.”

“Well?”

“My stupid brother loves everybody at once so they’ve got an ‘arrangement’,” she explained. “She’s not being bullied or whatever I said. Which is good to know, since I can’t ever talk to her again.”

Percy paused at that, then sat on the bed. “Okay, tell me what happened.”

She looked at him, then at the bedsheet, then back at him, then the wall.

“Vex.”

“I kissed Keyleth,” she whispered, sounding horrified even in her own ears. “I mean, she kissed me first, but she stopped, and then I kissed her back, and then I ran away.” Her eyes widened with realization. “I didn’t even pay for our drinks.”

“All things considered, they probably wrote them off as an entertainment expense.” He was trying to keep the laughter out of his voice, but it wasn’t going very well.

“Don’t make fun of me,” Vex protested. Then: “Wait, you’re not mad?”

“Why would I be mad?”

“I kissed someone else! I kissed _Keyleth!_ And we don’t have a...a _thing_ like she and Vax do.”

“Well, for one, it was a drunk kiss, and those don’t count unless you were specifically getting drunk so you could kiss.”

“I didn’t realize there were _rules_.”

“There are always rules, dear. Two, to be completely honest, I’m surprised we haven’t devolved into a labyrinthine network of relationships long before now.”

She scrunched her nose up as she looked at him. “I’m not following.”

“We’re all relatively healthy young people - physically if not mentally - with close personal relationships. They don’t all have to be physical, obviously, or even romantic - Grog and Pike, for example, are entwined with each other in a way I don’t think any of us can ever understand, but it’s entirely platonic. You, for example, may have a physical attraction to Keyleth but no interest in her romantically.”

“...why have you thought this much about this,” Vex asked flatly. Percy just shrugged.

“I watch people. You people are the people I’ve had the most opportunity to watch for quite a while.”

“So you’d be alright if we had an...arrangement, like Vax and Shaun and Keyleth.”

“If that’s what you wanted to do.” He shrugged. “I don’t think it’s a conversation we should have while you’re drunk, though. And you should definitely talk to Keyleth again first.”

Vex groaned, flopping back over onto the bed. “I told you I’m never talking to her again.”

“If nothing else, she apparently has a type.”

“I have been trying _very hard_ not to think about that, so thank you _very much_ for putting it at the forefront of my mind, Percy.”

“You’re very welcome, dear.”


	3. Chapter 3

The scene, as Percy saw it:

Vax stretched across a sofa, his head in Shaun’s lap, his feet in Keyleth’s. Vex, in a chair she’s pulled up to Keyleth’s side, casually holding her hand as she read a book propped up on the chair’s other arm.

It had been a few weeks since Vax-and-Keyleth became Vax-and-Keyleth-and-Shaun became Vax-and-Shaun-and-Keyleth-and-Vex. He supposed he was technically included in that last permutation, but looking at the group of them together, he’d never felt more apart. Which, truly, was saying something. The way he’d fought and clawed to find solace and companionship with even one person, and there they were, the four of them, falling together like someone had told them where to go from the start.

Oh, he knew it wasn’t _easy_. Vex came to him often (after many, many cautious “you’re sure you’re okay talking about this” type assurances) with stories of arguments or discussions they had, about how they all fit together and what everyone was comfortable with, and how Shaun was spoiling her brother absolutely rotten. It was work. They were working at it.

And he was very much aware of the hypocrisy in his brooding after what he’d told Vex. He’d meant it; they all seemed very much meant to be together, in whatever ways made them comfortable. He supposed now, looking at them, he might have realized only Vex was comfortable being together with _him_. She was working through whatever she felt for Keyleth, more carefully than he thought she’d ever gone into anything, and he had never been prouder or more jealous of anyone in his entire life.

Vex looked up as Keyleth said something, and laughed in that way she had where her nose scrunched all the way up. He knew her eyes would be alight with it, and the tips of her ears would turn red after a moment or so.

Keyleth’s face lit up at the sight, and she tugged Vex in towards her to kiss her, ever so gently, and it was more than Percy could take at that particular moment.

He fled.

* * *

 

                        He found solace in his workshop, in forging and fiddling and coming up with some new contraption or even an old one he could improve.

Machines were easy. They either did what you wanted or they didn’t. Occasionally they blew up in some extraordinary fashion, but he figured that mostly fell under the “didn’t” category.

“Percival?” The sound of his name came at the same moment as a series of quiet knocks on the door, and he closed his eyes and silently counted to three before he responded.

“In the back.”

The near-silent footfalls behind him could only be Vax. “Hey, friend.” He was being cautious with Percy. Percy resisted the urge to throw a wrench just to see the response.

“Hello, Vax.”

“So, um, Keyleth said she saw you hightailing it out of the library earlier.” Of course she had. “I was just making sure everything was…okay?”

“Everything is fine, Vax.” He still wasn’t looking at him. “Thank you for worrying. Thank Keyleth for me as well, if you would.”

Vax didn’t move. Percy eventually gave in, looking around at the half-elf. “Yes?”

“Thing is,” Vax said, rocking up on his toes a little as he spoke. “I don’t actually believe you. I don’t think you’re okay.”

“Then you’re more astute than your reputation gives you credit for.”

Vax winced, but took the verbal blow and kept going. “Is it about my sister? I didn’t actually mean for her to get caught up in all this – I figured she’d go snooping, eventually, but – “

“She was worried about Keyleth,” Percy said quietly. “Thought maybe Shaun had done something underhanded.”

“He wouldn’t –“

“I _know_ he wouldn’t, that’s why I told her to talk to Keyleth. That’s really all I thought they’d be doing with their mouths.” It came out more bitter than he intended, and he sighed at himself a little. “I’m working on something,” he said quietly, turning back to his workbench.

“Percy, man, talk to me. I don’t want this to be a thing if it’s going to upset you like this.”

“Your relationships are none of my business,” Percy told him. “And I’m certainly not going to stop Vex’ahlia from being happy.”

“What makes _you_ happy?”

That was the gut-punch. That was the question that got through the armor of carefully interlocked rings of sarcasm and cynicism, and he set his screwdriver aside for fear of bending it in his clenched fist.

“Vex,” he said bluntly. “Vex makes me happy. Her happiness makes me happy. And if that happiness is not with me, then – “

“That’s not how it works,” Vax said sharply. “It’s not an either-or thing. You haven’t _lost_ her just because she’s with Keyleth now, unless you’re just giving up because you’re not willing to work for it –“

Percy turned, anger burning in the pit of his belly. “I always knew she’d find someone else that made her happier – “

“Oh, fuck off,” Vax spat. “Do you remember what I told you, Percival? When you first took up with her? This is it. You’re hurting her with this. By not letting her know what you’re thinking.”

“And what do you propose to do about it?” He knew it was stupid as soon as it left his mouth; he wasn’t armed, and Vax was never _not_ armed, he was literally a weapon in himself. He curled in on himself as Vax started to move, but the strike didn’t come where he expected.

Vax grabbed him by the arms, forcing him upright, and didn’t kiss him so much as crash their faces together. His hands were painfully tight on Percy’s forearms, and Percy’s nose hurt where Vax had essentially headbutted him, but that anger that had lit up in Percy’s belly had exploded into an inferno, and with what could only be termed a _snarl_ he pushed Vax back, against the door of the workshop, capturing his mouth in a greedy, devouring kiss.

It wasn’t about anger. It wasn’t even really about sex. It was about touching, and being touched, and through that being made part of the whole.

He probably couldn’t have articulated that on a good day, and definitely not with Vax rutting into his hip, sucking a mark into his collarbone. So he tossed the words aside for now (along with his shirt) and made do with the language he had at his disposal.

* * *

 

                        It did take work. It took many conversations, and a lot of time alone in his workshop, and much subtle reassuring that _yes we want you here_ and _yes we love you_ and _this is okay, this is good_ before he was entirely comfortable with the group. With being a part of the group.

They sat under a tree during a quiet moment, Vex combing her fingers through his hair as he rested against her knee, Shaun on the other side, lightly dozing in the sun. Keyleth was curled up in a sunbeam like a cat, her fingers lazily entwined with his, and Vax was making as much flower jewelry as he could, decorating them all with woven-together blossoms. It was warm, and it was good, and after a long moment of self-reflection during which he most definitely did _not_ doze off, he decided he was happy.

And really, if he stopped to think about it, it was all Vax’s fault.


End file.
